Stay back, come closer
by frilencer
Summary: When Tony finds Ziva after searching for her for days, the last thing he expects her to say is "Stay back."


**Hi everyone :) it's been a while since I wrote my last Tony/Ziva fanfiction, but yesterday, as I was watching Person Of Interest, I got the inspiration for this one... I hope you'll like it!  
**

_**Stay back, come closer**_

"Stay back", she orders with a sudden scream, and her voice sounds so firm, her words so final that he can't do anything else but stop, freeze up in the spot where he's standing and stifle the stronger-than-gravity urge of rushing toward her. He feels his muscles tense and his whole body stiffen, and he stares at her from afar, barely breathing after the desperate running and the shocked halt, wondering why she won't let him come closer and release her from the ropes that keep her still.

He has been searching for her for days, continuously, decisively, despairingly, and now that he's found her and sees her bound on that chair, with her hands tied, her skin scratched, her face wearing the same expression he had seen on her in Somalia - an expression he had so fervently wished to never see again -, he can't help but feeling like a piece of iron so helplessly but voluntarily attracted by a magnet - and her words are a barrier she's raising between them, a barrier made of silence, and cold, and distance.

"Go away," she says, but her tone has dropped part of its decisiveness and gained a certain tremble, and that's what spurs him on to move forward, to hit with a first blow the wall of air that divides them: the step he takes is short and hesitant, but it's there and she sees it, because her eyes widen and a flash of fear crosses her worn out face, and once again she opens her mouth to say something, but only breath comes out. For a moment she looks like she's gathering the strength she needs to fight him, but he's faster than her and wipes out the distance that lies between them: he reaches her with few quick steps and kneels in front of her so that he's now staring right into her eyes, his gaze asking her questions that still have to get to his lips.

"Tony…" she starts to say, but he hushes her with a smile and reaches out his arms to untie her hands.

"It's okay, Ziva, I'm here," he tells her, partly to comfort her, partly to reassure his puzzled mind, which is still rumbling in confusion due to her previous rejection. It takes him some time, a few deep breaths and her warm proximity, but in the end his unease begins to dissolve, and he firmly moves his hands closer to hers, ready to unloosen her wrists from the ropes that keep her chained.

But that's when she speaks again, and this time there's no indecision in her tone, no tremble in her voice: "Tony, no, you have to go."

He freezes once more, struck by her abruptly re-obtained determination, and he moves his gaze from her hands to her face, where he finds a timid, almost invisible, definitely unexpected tear. His minds goes blank all of a sudden, and for a while he can only contemplate that twinkle of desperation in her eyes, and he remains still, and quiet. When he slowly begins to think clearly again, he lets confusion take over him and looks at her in bewilderment, silently asking her the reason why she can't just be happy with him being there to free her. All he wants to see is her face light up, her smile brighten, her eyes scream of joy and relief for being safe, but she only looks broken, beaten, defeated, and that's the last thing he was expecting – and wishing - to find in her.

"Please," she begs him, and he shakes his head in puzzlement and refusal, grabs her by her forearms and gazes upon her with worry and determination.

"Ziva, what…?" he begins to ask her, but that's when he sees it – a slim, threateningly red wire on her breast, half-hidden by her partially-ripped blouse.

For a moment he can only look at it in shock, but soon a rush of fear grasps him and he can't breathe. He instinctively reaches out his hand, blinded by the deceitful belief that he can just tear it off from her body and everything will be fine, but he immediately stops and stares at his trembling fingers, which are now almost touching her. He raises his head and meets her eyes, and when she parts her lips again, quite certainly to plead him to leave, he blurts a "no" out and she keeps quiet.

He hesitantly brushes his fingers on her blouse and waits for a word of permission, but all he receives is an accepting look – and it's more than enough for him. Slowly and carefully, he unbuttons the blouse, and as he does so he can only sense the throbbing of his heart and the trembling of his fingers. He tries to focus on what he's doing – the simple, usually thrilling action of unbuttoning a shirt – and attempts to keep his mind away from where it struggles to go. But when he's done and splits the two corners of the blouse, when he _sees _it, he can't hush his chain of thoughts anymore.

A bomb has been fastened on his partner's chest and wires come out of it like snakes ready to inject their venom. In the middle of the black box that lies on Ziva's bosom, time is beaten by a series of red digits that now say 5.30, and now 5.29.

He can't believe what he's seeing, he can't accept what his eyes are telling him it's true. He shakes his head in denial and struggles to remain firm on his knees as his whole body is crossed by a shiver. He takes a deep breath and moves his gaze back to her eyes, and now he understands what he sees in them: it's the inextinguishable strength of a fighter, but also the incurable acceptance of defeat; it's the instinctive fear that keeps men attached to life, but also the awareness that death is pulsing too close to where the heart is pumping; it's the consciousness that the end is approaching and you're helplessly waiting for it.

"Tony, you-you should go, there's nothing you can do," she stutters, and a tear starts running down her face, revealing how much has changed since Somalia: she's not ready to die, not now; she's not ready to leave this world in ashes; she's not ready to leave everything she loves behind. However, she's accepting her fate, and only asking for him to be safe: she wants him to leave her, to run away before the bomb kills them both, she wants him to save himself since she can't be saved.

He knows all of this just by the look in her eyes, by observing the march of her tear down her cheek; and not only does he know it, but he also understands it, because, roles being inverted, he'd want her to run as fast and far as she could, he'd want her to be anywhere but there with him.

His thoughts proceed fast, but there's only one thing he's sure of: he's never leaving her there, _never_, and not just because he's her partner and he's supposed to have her back, but also because he knows his life would end the moment he'd turn his back to her, accepting that she's gone and he has to live without her. The mere thought of going on without Ziva eats him away from the inside: he has already lost her once, and it broke him, but that was years ago; since then, they have gotten closer, they have gained intimacy, he has grown to have feelings for her stronger than any he has even felt for anyone. It's not just a partner he would lose this time, it's not just a close friend: it's the one person his whole life is worth living for, the symbol of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel. And he'd rather sink into darkness with her than living in his own black hole for the rest of the years to come.

He has taken a decision and she won't change his mind: he tenses up and breaths in deeply, then he fixates his eyes on the wires and lays his fingers on the black box.

"You do know how to defuse a bomb, right?"

"Tony…"

"I know you do, I've seen you do it a couple of times." He raises his chin and addresses her a quick, reassuring smile – and he needs so much willpower to do so. Her mouth is half-opened, her jaw is fighting to let out words that remain unspoken, and in that moment he knows she has given up on trying to push him again because, just like him, she is perfectly aware that nothing will make him leave her.

"Lead me," he whispers, and this time it's his turn to beg her to let him save her, to give him a chance to save them both. He patiently waits for her to answer, trying to push away the omnipresent thought that time is passing and the end is coming closer. After a moment that feels like an eternity, she takes a deep breath and nods.

His fingers move slowly but firmly, guided by her voice: he describes her the bomb as best as he can, knowing how valuable the right words are in this very moment. He tries to repress the tremble that constantly shakes his limbs and fights to remain focused on the bomb – this black, horrifying box that lies between their bodies and marks the line between life and death. It's hard for him not to think of how much it's at stake in this moment, but he refuses to surrender to the fear that fills him. He knew how much that could cost them both.

He wishes he could freeze time, because he dreads the moment of the final resolution; and when it comes, he feels his whole body tense and for a moment he can't catch a breath.

"I think it's that one," Ziva says, her voice surprisingly determined, and Tony lowers his gaze to the wire she has spoken of: it's the red wire he saw from the tear in her blouse, the wire that revealed him that his only presence wasn't enough for her to be safe. He looks at it with apprehension and uncertainty, then casts a glance at the timer: 01.27, it says.

His own sudden stillness makes him aware of the frantic throbbing of his heart, which has never stopped to hammer against his chest since he first saw the bomb. Now that only the cutting of a wire divides him from the truth – which might mean life or might mean death – he feels like the throbbing has become deafening and he raises his gaze, looking for a distraction in her eyes. However, her stare offers him much more than that: there's gratitude in her irises, and for a moment he wonders whether she's thanking him for staying there with her, but soon he knows that's not what she's thankful for. Maybe he's deceiving himself, maybe he's seen in them more than there's to see, but he feels like what she' grateful for is for him to have given her a reason to be afraid of death, grateful for him to have given her something she's scared to lose. Maybe it's not permanent, maybe it can fly away as easily as ashes do in the wind, but it's definitely something she cherishes, something she's thankful to have and wishful to keep.

He sees her tremble and all of a sudden he can't take it anymore: he doesn't want to let this bomb divide them more than it already does, so he places his hand on her cheek and strokes her skin with his thumb. He lets some seconds pass, seconds during which they just lose themselves in each other's eyes, seconds when promises are made and thanks exchanged. When he knows it's time to let her go, he leans on and places a kiss at the corner of her lips – and when he does, he feels her skin shiver and her lips curve in a smile, and that's what gives him strength to look away and go back to focus on the bomb. He takes out his pocket-knife and nears him to the wire: for a second, nothing else exists but him and the red slim tube. As the timer reaches 0.30, he takes one last look at her beautiful face and he knows that, once this bomb is defused, there's nothing else that can burst between him and Ziva. He was once afraid of consequences, he was once afraid of rejection: looking at her smile, he now recognizes them as mere fears. There's nothing he'll destroy if he tells her about his feelings, there's no chain of events he should be scared of triggering. Love won't let him lose what death hasn't touched.

Determined as ever, he lays the tip of the knife on the wire, so close to her bosom. Her breath moves her breasts up and down and Tony can't help but think that even though they might be worth dying over, he would for sure rather kiss them, once this bomb is defused and the last wall of defenses demolished.

And this is his last thought before he cuts the wire.


End file.
